


A Life Near By

by Queerily_kai



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: #Bucky remembers, #a little bit stalkery, #library regular, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky has a cat, Homeless Bucky Barnes, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Squatting, dumpster diving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-10-30 12:39:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10876968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queerily_kai/pseuds/Queerily_kai
Summary: Bucky may have snuck away after saving Captain America from the Potomac, but he didn't go far. He needed answers, and this Steve guy seemed to have them, so he did the last thing anyone would have expected, hiding out in the middle of Washington, DC while working on answering the most important question.Who the hell was Bucky, and why was he so important to this Captain America guy anyway?





	1. An act of Kindness

He stared down at his hand, just looking at it as he did every morning after he was woken by the morning light through the broken window of the abandoned building, mentally starting a new day. The hand, and the whole arm when he let himself look, always seemed to pull his attention, setting the mood for the day in a sense. He was intrigued by the hand, today, marveling at the advanced robotic limb that was attached to him. He had spent hours closely examining the individual plates that shifted and overlapped as the arm moved at his thoughts. Despite the number of times he had watched the metallic fingers shift into various shapes as quickly as he could think of them, hand shaping into a peace sign, or a thumbs up as smoothly as his flesh hand, he was still entranced by it, awed by the technology that was attached to him. 

Some days, he wanted nothing more than to lift up all the plates that he knew acted as maintenance doors, and take it all apart, examine how all the tiny gears he had only glimpsed at actually fit together and worked. He knew he couldn’t though, that the arm was too good, too useful, and even if he hated where it came from, he didn’t want to mess it up, or lose it.

It had been about 3 months since he found his way from the wreckage in the Potomac, after he saved the man from the bridge instead of killing him like he had been told to do. He hadn’t been able to though, and as far as he knew, that was a first. He had been able to break through his programming and commands to kill the man on the helicarrier. The same man who had called him Bucky on the bridge before he failed his previous mission. He had wanted to ignore commands before, to let someone live, or back out of a situation, but he had never been able to follow through. There was always that voice in his head, forcing him to comply, and then report back to his handler. The power it held over him was so strong he had long given up on trying to fight it.

He had felt that control slipping, loosening its hold on him until he was able to save the man instead of killing him, because he figured there was something about this man with the shield, and star on his chest, and the A on his helmet that was important. It was a different kind of important than his usual targets. He left him breathing, in a clear spot along the river where he would be spotted easily, and slipped away into the shadows to wait. It wasn’t long before he heard shouts from the black widow and a group of men, and the man was being picked up and carried away. 

“Sam, I found him, he’s alive”   
“Steve! Wake up!”  
“Stay with us, Cap!”  
“Get him to medical!”

He waited until it was dark, and slipped off down the river to an industrial area he had spotted. He figured it would be a decent area to find a place to squat for a while. He needed answers, about who Steve was and why he had been able to break his programming around him. And most importantly, who the hell is Bucky?

 

He assumed the room he had claimed as his was once an office, when the factory was running. It was at the top corner of the building, with windows to the north and east that were partially boarded up, plywood covering the remains of the broken glass. He had found some sheets of plastic,and enough tools throughout the building to block out the wind and draft without blocking too much light. If he needed to escape, he could easily tear it down and duck out the window. The door to the room opened up to a catwalk, looking down the the factory floor. The floor on the catwalk had been carpeted, and just enough remained intact to muffle footsteps. To one direction, there were identical rooms to his with east facing windows behind closed, solid doors, and waist high railings across from them giving an easy view below. There was a stairway at the south end of the building leading to a door that served as a main entrance at one end, and another set of stairs leading to a loading dock and large garage door at the north end. 

He explored back alleys and dumpsters at night, amazed at the things people just threw away. It wasn’t long before he had found (and carried through the city in the middle of the night) a mattress, a pile of pillows and blankets, a few slightly chipped plates and cups, and books. Lots of books. There was also a lot of food if you knew where to look, and when. There was a deli on one street that would throw away food that had passed the sell by date at 9pm, tossing out packaged meats and cheeses, cookies and bread that was now 2 days old. Another grocery store threw away bruised produce at 10, and he would wait in the shadows for the produce clerk to come out and toss the days box of bruised apples and plums, bananas specked with black, tomatoes with split skins and other slightly damaged vegetables and then darted out to the dumpster to grab his share. He wasn’t the only one waiting some days. 

 

After a few long moments of quietly staring at his hand one morning, meditating almost, he emerged from his nest of blankets and went over to the metal desk that had remained in the room and started making breakfast, the sun now high enough to light the room through the plastic sheets at the top of the window. He pulled out a french press and cooking pot he had found behind a restaurant, and the butane camp stove he had found broken and repaired, and started boiling water for coffee. He had filled a few water bottles at a park drinking fountain the day before, so his stash was currently full. A few weeks before, he had found a box with at least 10 pounds of ‘expired’ ground coffee, and happily snatched up the whole thing, remembering the coffee press he had found the week before. While the water heated, he opened the large metal desk drawer, and picked out a block of cheese and and apple that had been sitting on top of a bag of ice (from the fishmarket on the docks….. They always had extra laying around that would just end up melting after they finished setting up for the day's fresh fish delivery at 5 am.) to eat with the pastries the bakery had tossed the day before, still sealed in their packages.

It wasn’t long before he had a cup of coffee and a plate of fruit, cheese and pastries ready. He set them on the small table he had carried from 10 blocks away, and settled into the old cracked leather office chair, that had been left behind along with the desk. He opened his note book to the first page, with “Things I know” written in large letters at the top. He read the list, as he did every morning. 

1\. My name is James Buchanan Barnes.   
2\. My friends called me Bucky.  
3\. The man from the bridge is Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America.  
4\. Bucky and Steve used to be best friends in Brooklyn, in the 1930’s and 1940’s.   
5\. Steve used to be smaller, and sick all the time, but a German scientist created a serum that made him a superhero. Now Steve is tall, and healthy, and probably stronger than you.  
6\. You and Steve fought together during WWII, as part of a special ops group called the howling commandos.  
7\. You were captured by Hydra, and they gave you a similar serum to the one Steve got, making you stronger.   
8\. Hydra made your metal arm.  
9\. Hydra took away your memories, and used mind control to make you kill for them.   
10\. You were known as the Winter Soldier, a deadly assassin.   
11\. Hydra does not control you anymore.

“My name is Bucky, and Hydra does not control me anymore.” Bucky said out loud, putting down the notebook. He got dressed, putting on the jeans and hoodie and jacket he had found behind a church one night. It surprised him how often he found clothes and hats and coats behind churches, donations to the homeless. 

After checking and resetting his traps (simple ones that would let him know if someone had entered the building while he was gone) Bucky grabbed his backpack full of empty water bottles, soap and a towel in case he found a good bathroom to wash up in, his notebook, and a couple pieces of fruit, and headed out for the day. 

It was just after 8am, and Sam and Steve were probably at the park, running the perimeter. He went to his usual bench under a tree, and began reading while he waited for them to run past.  
He watched them pass by 3 times in the time it took him to read 2 chapters. He never acknowledged them, just glanced up and watched them pass by from a distance, feeling a sense of relief at the knowledge that Steve was okay. Getting the chance to see him every day, even briefly, was good.

After leaving the park, Bucky walked across Washington, DC toward the jobcore center to see if he could get any work that day. He assumed that Hydra was looking for him, or maybe S.H.I.E.L.D, and was careful to wear sunglasses and a bandana as he made his way through the city, metal left hand covered by a glove at all times. He had overheard enough conversations to know that most people assumed he was a veteran from Afghanistan, or Iraq, with burns or scars of some kind to hide, that there was something about the way he walked and stood. He decided to just go with it as a disguise. 

It was too late already for any of the official jobs the Jobcore center had to offer, if you had the right paperwork and an acceptable identity, but that's not why Bucky was there anyway. He joined the group of guys waiting for the under the table offers. The men who would offer cash for a few hours of work unloading a truck, or clearing out rubble from a construction site. Bucky was approached, along with a couple other big guys to work a job on the docks the following morning, and he agreed to meet the man at 4am to help unload a fishing boat.

He stayed on the sidewalk, leaning against the building for a while to see if there would be any other jobs available that day, but no one else showed up with offers. It wasn’t so much that he needed money, Hydra had trained him to be resourceful enough to be able to survive on less than he had, but he liked working the odd jobs. It gave him something to do, it got him talking to people again, remembering how to make small talk with strangers. He was feeling useful, in public, and it had nothing to do with a hydra mission. And he had remembered how much he had enjoyed milkshakes, and cheeseburgers before the war, and you couldn’t find those things while dumpster diving.

He left the Jobcore site and headed across the city to the library, as he usually did on the days he did not find work right away. The woman at the front desk gave him a small wave, and Bucky nodded in greeting as he walked past to the periodicals area, settling in at a table in the corner. He pulled out his notebook, opening it to a fresh page and began reading the day's papers. There were 5 or 6 that he would read cover to cover, scanning the articles for familiar names or locations, keywords that triggered memories of his time as the asset, the winter soldier shaping history under the direction of Hydra. He made notes of all events related to kidnappings, assassinations, bombing, or anything else that could possibly be related to hydra, looking for patterns or repeated locations. 

Some days he would read a name of a spouse or business partner, and remember someone he murdered. He would go to a new page in his notebook and write down whatever information he could as the names and dates and locations flooded back to him, along the feeling of a tree branch he was perched in while he aimed his rifle for a headshot, or the look in someone's eye just before his metal hand snapped their neck. He remembered the mission report he gave before being put back in cryo freeze, until the next time history needed to be shaped in Hydra’s favor. 

He would then pack up his notebook and put away the paper and head up to the history section on the 4th floor, and read up on what he actually did. How the history books reconciled the murder he had been forced to commit. The explanations for why someone had been assassinated, and what happened after.

An article about Russian ballerinas once lead him to memories of Natasha, the redheaded black widow he had seen with Steve and Sam a few times. He remembered the red room, and vague memories of training children to be assassins. It led to 3 days straight of reading nothing but Russian and Cold War history. He didn’t remember that he spoke Russian, or that he used to while he was under control as the Winter Soldier, until he was 100 pages into a book and suddenly realized that he wasn’t reading English. 

He spent the next day in the world languages area on the 5th floor, and discovered that he also spoke German, Romanian, and a little bit of French.

That day however, in the periodicals department, was a slow news day, and the only memory triggers were for minor things he had already researched. He was about to head back to the factory for lunch when he noticed an ad for the Captain America exposition at the Smithsonian, announcing a new documentary about Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers, with newly discovered footage that had never been seen before. Bucky just stared at the ad, featuring the photo of Steve and him during WWII that had been used in many of the Smithsonian's marketing campaigns, and felt his chest tighten up. 

It had taken a few weeks of going to the library almost everyday before Bucky had first searched for himself in the history books. It was strange, learning about himself, while he remembered enough to know that a lot of it was wrong. There were also things he read about doing that he didn’t remember at all. It was inevitable that any article about him, would also mention his relationship with Steve, even if it wasn’t clear what kind of relationship they had. They were described as best friends since childhood, practically brothers. The history books all liked to mention the double dates, and Bucky was often described as a ladies man, but Bucky had memories of sharing a small bed with Steve, and of how soft Steve’s skin was. 

He wondered if this new video would explain things better. Despite his efforts, Bucky struggled to remember any girls that he had been interested in, and when he thought about the double dates the books all reference, he remembered a feisty blond boy, grinning at him with soft eyes, and the chill Bucky always felt when Steve put a hand on his back while they were dancing. He remembered the day he had spent reading up on GLBT history, Harvey Milk, and Stonewall, the Queer Liberation Army and Pride parades, all the changes in laws, and legalization of gay marriage. He had been close to tears while reading about the first lesbian couple to legally get married in Massachusetts, but didn't understand at the time why it affected him like that. 

So he wondered now about this new footage, and the memories of Steve that were gradually getting clearer, and for the first time wondered if the girls had been a cover. Was Steve his Boyfriend? Was this new documentary going to out them? He smiled at the idea.

Bucky read over the Smithsonian ad again, seeing that they would begin airing the documentary, 4 times a day (it was 90 minutes long) the following day. He decided he would go see it, some morning when it wouldn’t be too crowded.

He left the library, and began walking the route that took him past the diner, with the milkshakes and the cheeseburgers. It had been a few days since he had gone dumpster diving for food, and he knew that supplies were getting low. Knowing that fishermen usually played well, we decided to splurge a little on a hot meal. Bucky had been here a few times, making it routine to come in once a week, usually after finishing a job. 

He went to the corner booth, sitting in what was becoming his usual spot. Normally, he ordered a cheeseburger, chocolate milkshake, and fries for 7.49, and left $10 to include a tip. He was checking how much cash he had in his wallet when a familiar waitress came over. 

“Usual, babe?” She asked casually, not seeming threatened by the leather glove he always wore, and how he only pulled down the black bandana that alway covered his face when there was food in front of him. 

“No.. uhh.” Bucky replied, noticing that he only had $6 in his wallet. The rest of his money was in a locked cashbox, stashed in the factory. He carried less than $20 most days, but had thought he currently had more on him.

“Just fries and a coke today” He replied, frowning slightly. 

“Ok, I’ll be right back with that.” she replied, walking away. 

A few minutes later, she returned with a chocolate shake. 

“Uhh, I just asked for a coke.” he said shyly. “I don’t have the cash for this today.”

“Oh, thats right.” the waitress said with a grin. “My mistake. You might as well drink it anyway, or I’ll have to throw it away.” She said as she walked away. 

Bucky smiled as he took a sip. He couldn't remember the last time someone had done something nice for him like that. 

He nearly protested when she returned again carrying a cheeseburger along with his fries, but she just glared and shook her head as she placed the burger in front of him.   
“I know what you said, but you looked so disappointed, and I just can’t deal with those sad eyes today, so take it.”   
“I… uh.” Bucky stuttered, trying to respond.   
“If you're worried about me getting in trouble, I own the place, and I say it's fine. So eat up.”   
“Yes, ma’am.” Bucky replied, picking up a fry. 

The cheeseburger was delicious, and Bucky was smiling to himself as he finished it. He had left his $6 on the table, even though he hadn’t been given a bill, and was slipping his hat and jacket back on when the server slipped into the seat across from him. 

“I’m sorry in advance if I’m being too forward here, but I think we can help each other out.” She announced. “My name’s Lorraine, by the way. My husband Dan does most of the cooking here, along with a couple other part time guys. And I have Sarah and Alice helping me out front here when its gets busy. Were like a family, watching out for each other. Drew just quit the other day leaving us a bit short staffed. He did most of the dishes and cleaning up, and we need some help as soon as we can get it, if you’re interested.”

Bucky just stared for a moment, at a loss for words.   
“I’m Bucky.” He finally said. “And why me?”

“Cause I’ve seen you around, at the library, and in here, and you don’t seem like the crazy murderer type to me. Just like a guy trying to start over and get back on his feet, and like I said, we’re a bit desperate for the help right now, so I thought Id offer you a chance, if you need.”

Bucky just smiled, tempted by the offer. “Thanks, but I don't exactly have all the right paperwork to be able to work officially.” 

“Not a problem.” Lorraine replied without hesitating. “I can pay you $10/hr cash. All under the table.” 

“Well, I think we have a deal.” Bucky said, putting out his right hand. “Thank you, Ma’am.”

“You stop right now with that ‘ma’am’ business.” Lorraine demanded. “So how does tomorrow at noon sound for your first shift?”

“I should be able to make it here by then.” Bucky replied. “I found some work unloading a fishing boat early in the morning, but those are usually done by 10.” 

Lorraine just smiled at him, “well, you just get here when you can tomorrow, and we'll make sure to get a hot meal in you before we show you the job.”

“Sounds great. Thanks again.” 

He pulled a napkin from the dispenser, and carefully wrapped up the last bite of his burger, slipping it into his pocket. 

“Why do you always save the last bite like that?” Lorraine asked, curiously. 

“Because my cat likes cheeseburgers too.” He replied with a grin, standing and pulling on his backpack. He left with wave, smiling bigger than she had ever seen him. Lorraine was almost disappointed to see him pull the bandana back up over his face as he stepped onto the street.


	2. Moonshine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Furry friends are made, Rube Goldberg devices are build, and Steve is stalked, kind of.
> 
> Just a normal day for Bucky Barnes

Bucky was grinning under his bandana as he made his way back to the factory building by the river.  He took an indirect route, avoiding major roads and intersections that were likely to have traffic cameras, sticking to the shadowy alleys and side streets.  He passed a few dumpsters behind cafe’s and deli’s, lucking out when he saw an employee set a box on top of a dumpster, barely hidden beneath the lid, and go back into an organic market.  Bucky glanced around, and quickly went for the dumpster, grabbing a few pre made sandwiches that were now 3 days old, and some Odwalla smoothies that would technically expire that day, all still cold.  After quickly stashing them in his backpack, he continued home, feeling lighter than he had in a very long time.

 

As he got closer to the factory, he tensed up slightly, moving slower through the shadows as he carefully made his way toward the entrance.  The building was technically for sale, as was advertised on the side of the building, paint chipped and faded on the brick.  It seemed to have been on the market for a long time however, so Bucky figured his chances of running into a real estate agent, or potential buyer were low.  He was at the corner of the building, scanning for any of the guards or military personnel that occasionally passed by, when a black and white cat appeared at his side, chirping a meow in greeting as he head butted Bucky’s ankle.

 

“Hey Shiner.” Bucky whispered, smiling down at the cat. “We have to be quiet right now, buddy.” 

 

The cat stayed at his side as they snuck along the side of the building and through the door, only opening it half way.  He paused just inside the door, listening for the clang of a glass bottle falling over in a distant corner, just making out the faint clunk.  No one had opened the door while he was gone, or else the bottle wouldn’t have fallen when he did.  He shut the door behind him, and slowly made his way along the south wall, checking out all of his traps.

 

Within the first week of claiming the factory as his home, after spending almost 3 days watching the building from an alley across the street to confirm it was un occupied, Bucky had built an elaborate set of alert triggers.  While exploring the place, he discovered a large supply of rope and gears and other various machine parts, and had one of his first clear memories of Steve.  

 

Bucky had brought home a book on Rube Goldberg Machines, mostly cartoons, and it wasn’t long before he and Steve would spend their evenings inventing their own machines.  They would sit close on the couch while Steve drew the complicated systems where throwing a baseball at a shoe would make the shoe push a button, and a motor would start, and 15 steps later, a bowling pin on a rope is opening a door for you, while Bucky leaned in and told him things to draw. 

 

Bucky had built several massive real life Rube Goldberg machines, with ropes and pulleys and gears along the walls and railings of the factory, and could tell by counting ball bearings in a row of jars if anyone had been inside, and what doors they had opened, or where they had walked and hit a tripwire. 

 

He looked at the jars, and relaxed further when he found them all empty, aside from the 2 bearings in the front door jar from when he had left and returned again.  The bottle falling was a secondary trigger, set near a broken window that he would carefully reach in and reset from outside the building when he left.  So far, in the two and a half months the traps had been in place for, only 2 of the tripwires on the far side of the building had ever been triggered, jolting Bucky awake and reaching for a knife as the wire caused a metal beam to be struck with a hammer near his room, as an audio alert.  Both times it had been triggered by the cat. 

 

“All clear” He said “Let’s go upstairs, buddy.”  

The cat, who had been sneaking along the wall in the shadows at his side meowed again, and rubbed against his leg before running up the stairs ahead of him.

 

Bucky paused at the top of the stairs, listening carefully as he scanned the factory floor for any movement, a final check before finally relaxing and heading down the hall to his room in the back corner.  He smiled at the sound of the hammer clanging on a beam as he opened the door, knowing that there was also a faint clinking noise as a bearing dropped into a jar downstairs, and was comforted by the knowledge that his machine was still working. Shiner jumped up onto the desk, watching intently as Bucky set his bag down and began unloading the sandwiches and smoothies the drawer with the ice, making a mental note to try to find new ice soon, and lined up the refilled water bottles along the wall.  

 

Bucky placed his bag near the door, pulling out the book he had started reading in the park that morning, and slipped off his boots and jacket, grabbing the folded napkin from the pocket.  He relaxed into the leather chair, moving it slightly into the patch of sun coming through the window.  Shiner perched at the edge of the desk, meowing at Bucky while staring at him.  

 

Bucky just looked back at the cat, unwrapping the last bite of his cheeseburger and holding it out. He tensed up slightly, bracing himself as Shiner prepared to leap across the room, and still cringed as tiny claws pricked his stomach and thighs as the cat landed in his lap, and headbutted him in the chin.   

 

Shiner meowed at him after quickly eating the burger in a couple bites, and looked up at him as if asking for more. 

“That’s it for now, bud” Bucky told the cat, crumpling up the napkin and tossing it onto the small table.   He held out his hands, and Shiner sniffed at them, still hoping for more food, before headbutting at his hands instead, until Bucky gave in and started to pet him and scratch behind his ears.  It wasn’t long until the cat was curled up in his lap sleeping, and Bucky was reading again, allowing himself to get lost in a fantasy world for a while.  

 

The cat, Moonshine, or Shiner more often as a nickname, wasn’t technically Bucky’s cat.  He hadn’t gotten him on purpose.  It was more like the cat had claimed him, appearing in the alley one day and following him inside.  Bucky just shrugged it off at first, knowing that there were too many broken windows in the place to bother trying to keep a cat out, and figured he had a roommate now.   A few hours later, he was eating a baguette with hummus and salami some deli had thrown away the night before, when he heard a meow at the door.  

 

He opened it to find the cat from earlier, looking up at him with big yellow eyes glowing in the light coming through the windows. 

 

“You’re still here, huh.” he asked the cat, looking down at him. The cat just meowed again, sounding like a chirp, or squeak.  It was kind of pathetic. He stepped aside as he opened the door further, and the cat didn’t hesitate to run into the room and jump into Bucky’s chair.

 

“I don’t think so.” Bucky told the cat, crossing his arms. The cat chirped again, and Bucky picked him up, holding him out at arms length and placing him back on the floor.

 

In less than a minute, the cat was on the table next to him, and Bucky was feeding him little bits of salami. He had offered some bread and hummus as well, but the cat wasn’t interested. 

 

After they had finished eating, Bucky looked at the cat, all black except for a crooked and uneven streak of white fur running down his nose and neck to his belly, with little bits of white on all 4 paws and at the tip of his tail.  He had large golden eyes that almost seemed to glow, and somehow look worried as he stared back at Bucky.   “Your eyes shine like the moon.” he told the cat, and then suddenly he had named it Moonshine, and then Moonshine was purring loudly in Bucky’s lap while he pet him, and Bucky had a cat.   He added ‘I like cats’ to the mental list of additional things he knew.

  
  
  


He spent the afternoon relaxed in the office chair, reading his book as moonshine gently snored in his lap, and took a short nap himself once the sun set and it became too dark to read.  He had purchased a few items from the money he made working odd jobs, including a battery operated camping lantern, and an alarm clock, but he didn’t like turning on the light any more than necessary, using a small flashlight most times instead. Around 8:30, after eating one of the sandwiches he had found earlier that day, Bucky grabbed his backpack and went back out to the alleys, making his rounds to various dumpsters to try to re-stock his food supply. 

 

It was about 90 minutes later when he returned to the factory, putting fresher (or at least more frozen) ice into the drawer, and loading up the fruit, cheese and hummus he had found, and placing the bread loaves and various baked goods on the shelf.  He didn’t need to sleep anymore, being able to easily stay awake for over 48 hours thanks to Hydra’s serum, and decides to wait out the hours until he started work at the dock in Steve’s neighborhood.  

 

It had taken Bucky about a week to figure out where Steve lived.   His early research at the library had easily lead him to the Triskelion building downtown, and he sat unnoticed on the sidewalk with a paper cup and cardboard sign, watching the main entrance and SHIELD employees came and went (including a few he recognized, memories of missions as the winter soldier flashing through his mind) for 3 days. 

 

It was toward the end of the the third day when he finally spotted Steve on the sidewalk outside of the building.  He stood talking to a man, before shaking his hand and then watching the man get into the back of a car and be driven off before going back inside himself.  About 10 minutes later, he saw Steve again, exiting the underground parking lot on a motorcycle and heading North. 

 

The next day, Bucky sat on the sidewalk on a different corner, a few blocks north with a motorcycle he had borrowed nearby.  He had noticed it in a garage a few days before, noting that the door was almost never closed.   The next day, he was ready when Steve once again rode out of the underground garage and headed north, and he followed Steve to a brick apartment building in what looked like a nice residential neighborhood.  He watched as Steve entered the building, and then returned the borrowed motorcycle to the garage. 

 

Three nights later, Bucky returned to Steve’s neighborhood, and explored the nearby rooftops and fire escapes until he found a spot he could see into Steve’s kitchen and living room from. He’s mostly hidden behind the ledge of the roof, just watching, and knowing that Steve is okay.

 

Bucky arrived at his usual spot, and wasn’t surprised to see that Steve is still up, despite it being nearly midnight.  As far as he can tell, Steve doesn’t sleep much, but paces around the apartment instead.  He seems to have a routine, a circuit almost, and Bucky finds it comforting.  

 

He’s at the desk when Bucky arrives, rapidly sketching something that Bucky can’t see.  After about 15 minutes, Steve throws down his pencil and leans back in his chair with a dramatic sigh, and glares at the page for a moment, before standing and circling the room.  Bucky watches as he walks to the bookshelf, pulling out returning several books.  He then goes to the kitchen, looking bored as he looks into the fridge, and then a couple cabinets, and the fridge again, before heading back to the living room.  Sometimes with a snack, sometimes with nothing.   

 

The routine continues until after 2 am, as Steve randomly tries and gives up on reading, drawing, watching tv, and sometimes just staring out the window.   Bucky can’t see into the bedroom Steve disappears into after checking the locks on the doors and windows 3 times, and turns off all the lights, but he assumes Steve is laying in bed awake, staring at the ceiling when he’s not pacing around his bedroom. 

  
Bucky waits a little longer, gaze still focused on the dark apartment across the alley, before creeping back down the fire escape and back to the factory he calls home. He turns on the small lantern, keeping the light dimmed and away from the windows and eats another sandwich and some fruit.   He packs his backpack with a book and a couple snacks, checks his traps and resets the ball bearings, and makes his way down to the docks at the fishmarket to begin the day's work. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on tumblr at thisqueerlifeofmine


	3. A Purpose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky has a job, and a purpose, and finally makes a decision.

The work on the docks is hard, but something about the physical exhaustion he feels is comforting. It’s familiar in a way that Bucky can’t quite identify. He’s not entirely sure, but he has a feeling he has done this type of work before. 

He gets into a rhythm with the men as they pass crates of slippery fish up from the chilled bowels of the boat and load them onto a cart. Once the cart is full, they drag it up the docks to the fishmarket, and work to sort the fish by type and size and display the best looking fish on ice. It’s just after 10 when they finish, the day’s stock packed away on ice, and the cold storage area of the boat is cleaned of seaweed and all the debris that had gotten caught in the nets. The men are handed $100 each, cash, and go their separate ways.

Bucky looked at his watch, another of the few items he had purchased for himself and realized he had two hours until he needed to be at the diner. He moved down to a quiet area of the docks, and sat in the sun while he ate the apple and bit of bread he had stashed in his bag for a snack. He smelled, he realized, of sweat and fish and his hair was getting a bit greasy again. While he did his best to wash regularly, wiping himself down with a washcloth and bar of soap, dampened from one of his bottles of water, it wasn't the same as an actual shower. He checked that he had packed his soap, shampoo, and a clean pair of boxers, and made his way to the YMCA. For $10, he was able to get a 1-day guest pass, giving him access to a hot shower. It was a luxury he only splurged on every 10 days or so, but starting a real job felt like a good reason to spend the money. 

Bucky walked into the diner at 11:45, and Loraine greeted him with a smile, gesturing to a stool at the counter as she made her way to a couple sitting in a booth. Bucky sat nervously, running his fingers through his damp hair as he waited. 

“Good to see you again, Bucky!” Lorraine said cheerfully, leaning against the counter across from him. “I promised you a hot meal before we put you to work, so you just sit right there and I’ll be right back.”

She disappeared through the swinging door into the kitchen, returning after a moment with a heaping plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, along with a glass of Coke.

“Thanks, ma’am,” Bucky said politely, picking up his fork.  
“We talked about that ma’am thing, Bucky,” she said shaking her head.  
“Sorry, Ma… Loraine,” he corrected, still sounding nervous. “This looks great.” 

Once he was done eating, Lorraine took Bucky back into the kitchen, leaving Alice to watch the dining room and customers, and introduced him to Dan, Lorraine's husband and the head cook, and Chris, another line cook in the kitchen. Dan gave Bucky a quick tour, and brief explanation of how to run the dishwasher, promising to show him more after the lunch rush finished. He handed over a long sleeve shirt, and rubber gloves that reached Bucky’s elbows, and pointed out the plastic apron hanging in the corner. 

“Loraine figured you would want to keep covering whatever you are hiding there.” Dan explained, gesturing vaguely to Bucky’s gloved left hand and pulled down sleeve. “It doesn’t seem like the kind of secret that's going to hurt no one, so I’m not going to ask either.”

Bucky felt a rush of relief as he took the shirt and gloves, and slipped into the employee bathroom that had been pointed out to him to change, and got to work. 

The work was pretty simple, rinsing scraps of food of of plates and bowls, before loading them into a rack and sliding it into the machine and pulling down the handle to close the doors and start it up. 90 seconds later, open the doors and push the clean dishes out the other end. Once they were dry, stack them up, and once a stack was big enough, bring them to the cooks on the line. It wasn’t easy though, the plates were heavy and burning hot coming out of the dishwasher, and and it never seemed to stop. Everytime he cleared a pile, a Alice or Lorraine would show up with another pile of dirty plates.

After about an hour, as far as Bucky could guess, the lunch rush had ended and Dan came back over to the dish pit. 

“Sorry to have just thrown you in here like that,” he apologized, “but it seems like you’ve figured it out pretty well.”

Bucky just shrugged and looked around. 

“It’s not that complicated,” he agreed, “and I washed enough dishes for my ma as a kid…”  
He trailed off, wondering when he had remembered his mother. It caught him by surprise.

“She would probably be proud of you, son.” Dan said, having noticed Bucky’s reaction and assumed she had passed away.

“I just haven't found where to put that stuff yet,” Bucky explained, quickly changing subject and pointing to a sauce pot filled with spatulas and ladles and other various tools. 

Dan picked up the pot, and lead the way over to the cooking line and thoroughly explained Bucky’s new job, showing how to clean out the dishwasher and change soap canisters, where the dumpsters were, and all the other basics. It wasn’t a difficult job, but there was always something to do and friendly banter among the staff, and it made time go by quickly. 

Bucky, if he was honest, couldn’t say he enjoyed the work itself, but it was good to have a routine. He was a part of the background making sure everyone had the tools to do their job. He worked quietly as he made sure Dan always had a stack of plates next to his stove, and Lorraine had plenty of cups and coffee mugs behind the counter, and that no ones garbage can was ever overflowing. He had a purpose. 

He would arrive around 9 am, when the diner was busy with the breakfast crowd, waving a quick hello to Lorraine and the other servers around the counter as he slipped past into the kitchen. Most days were busy with a steady crowd all day, and the time went quickly. The diner closed at 2 everyday, open only for the breakfast and lunch crowds, and they were normally cleaned up and finished work for the day by 3. Every Friday, Lorraine would hand him an envelope of cash for his work in the past week. 

Bucky spent his afternoons at the library, and watched Steve from a rooftop across the alleyway in the afternoons. It wasn't exciting, but it wasn’t a bad way to spend his days. 

It was a Sunday morning when Bucky visited the Smithsonian again and watched the new documentary he had seen advertised from the back corner of the theatre. He was anxious as he waited for it to begin, wondering what he would learn about his past, and what new memories would haunt his dreams the next time he tried to sleep. So far, there had been very few positive memories of his past since he parted ways with the Howling Commandos, after the fall that killed him. Bucky still hadn’t decided exactly how he felt about the public records still saying he was dead, the constant mention of how he died for the war effort, about being a ghost. It was amusing at best. 

There wasn’t too much new information in the documentary, mostly rediscovered footage from Steve’s USO tour days, and Bucky found himself grinning as he watched clip after clip of Steve in his tight Captain America uniform, wooing crowds of women and children while surrounded by bubbly chorus girls. 

There was also new footage of Steve and Bucky together, foreheads nearly touching and hands bumping and they studied maps and planned missions. And footage of the howlies during a slow period, waiting out the hours until darkness to begin an operation, of the group playing cards or napping or reading. Steve and Bucky were always together in these clips, sitting shoulder to shoulder talking, or leaning against each other napping, a head in a lap while the other read. And Bucky started to remember, the feel of Steves head on his shoulder or chest, the smiles and whispered conversations they would share, the way they always found each other and locked eyes from across the room. He left the theater grinning under his bandana.

That afternoon, after leaving the Smithsonian, after walking through the Captain America exhibit again, he went home and pulled out his notebook. He read through all the pages of things he had learned about Steve, new memories filling in a few gaps as he went. It was more than he had remembered at one time before and left his chest feeling tight and eyes threatening to tear up. He remembered his Steve, and made a decision. He sat staring out the window, absently stroking moonshine who was curled in his lap, and continued to remember. 

The hidden corners that Steve would pull him into to sneak a kiss, both during the war and in Brooklyn. The easy way they fit together, and kept each other warm through long winter nights. Steves smile that was only ever for Bucky. He picked up his notebook again and turned back to the list of things he knew on the first page. 

He picked up a pen, and added another item. 

11\. Bucky Barnes is in love with Steve Rogers. 

 

That night, after dark, Bucky carefully lifted Moonshine out of his lap, chuckling as the cat meowed in protest, and slipped out of the factory with his flashlight. He climbed the fire escape to his usual spot on the roof across from Steve’s apartment. He didn’t have to wait long until he saw Steve begin his evening routine, pacing around the living room with a book in his hand. He turned on the flashlight and pointed it at Steve's window, waving his finger up and down in the beam to get Steve's attention. 

Steve tensed up at the signal, recognizing it from his days with the Howlies, and moved to the window. Bucky flashed the light again, getting Steve to look up at his hiding spot. 

He clicked the light on and off, spelling out ‘I love you punk’ in morse, and then put the flashlight down. Steve stood at the window without moving for long moment, and then disappeared out the door. Less than a minute later, Bucky heard a faint metallic groan, and footsteps on the fire escape, and soon Steve's head was peeking over the wall.

“Bucky?” he asked, eyes wide. 

“Hi, Steve,” Bucky replied, lowering his bandana and shifting into the light so Steve could see his face. “I’ve been remembering some things.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So im calling this complete for now. I know its kind of a cliffhanger, and I understand that you probably want to know what happened next, but there are already 1000s of fics that take place once Steve and Bucky are reunited and Steve helps him remember and recover, choose your favorite one that fits. 
> 
> Go read [ Taraksvasana ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11036520) if you want that story.  
> I have lots of other projects going on right now and something had to go on hold for a while but I do have more ideas for this universe that I plan to get back to in the future.
> 
> Thanks for reading everyone!

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Tumblr! @kaiwrites


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